Today we cleaned the deck gwice with acetone and once with Inerlux 333 Brushing Liquid. The deck was nice and clean and ready to prime. We put Sully down for a nap and Natalie brushed around the edges and raised parts and I rolled the rest of the deck. I thinned the primer about 5% for the rolls but my measuring must not have been very precise, or my mixing wasn’t perfect because the first half of the primer on the starboard side of the boat is a thinner coatn than on the port side. Tomorrow we’ll sand and prime the decks again.
While we’re painting the boat we’re staying down the dock on our neighbor and good friend Bill’s boat. It’s awesome to stay in a marina with a lot of great neighbors.
Sorry for the long blog hiatus. A lot has happened off the boat since the last update. I was selected for Chief Petty Officer at work and went through 6 long weeks of training. I wasn’t able to make any progress on the boat during that time so I had some help from a coworker taping over the holes I drilled to mount deck hardware. I have a new perspective for work and it feels good to get away from leaving for work at 0400 and being back home by 2100 exhausted. It’s awesome to be back to work on the boat and return to my normal life.
Natalie and Sully helped pin on my new rank on September 13
All the decks have been faired and sanded. The toe rail has 8 coats of varnish and now we’re doing the finishing touches and are getting ready to roll primer and paint!
A well varnished toerail that glistens is a thing of beauty. Once the project is done everything on deck will be cleaned up and ship shape!
Then we’ll tape around the deck hardware and roll nonskid. I’m not sure if we’ll mount the deck hardware or just rough fit and tape. It will probably be easier to roll the nonskid with a rough fit and then remove the hardware than to roll around it.
I made a quick walkaround video of what the boat looks like now. We’re so close to being done and I can’t wait to get there!
One bad thing is the shore powered compressor for our fridge and freezer is on the fritz. I’ll try and work on it this weekend if we’re not rolling primer, paint or nonskid. Our priority is the paint so the fridge will just have to wait until later.
